The cartographic imagination is clearly not confined to any single discipline. As the speakers at this event will demonstrate, maps and mapping are now used by researchers and creative practitioners of all stripes. Many of us carry maps in our pockets (on phones, on coins) and we are just as likely to ‘map’ social relations or cyber traffic as walking routes or political boundaries. Given this diversity of objects and approaches, it seems timely to ask what questions are common to academics, artists, and archivists in their dealings with visual representations of places? Is it even accurate to describe maps as primarily visual, or has portable technology changed the way that we – as citizens and scholars – interact with our world and the plans we make of it?

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PGR/ECR Meet & Greet

Wednesday 18th October 2017

Jointly hosted by four Faculty Research Groups (the Cultural Significance of Place Research Group, Gender Research Group, Medieval & Early Modern Studies Research Group and The Digital Cultures Research Group) this event was a chance to meet colleagues with similar interests in different disciplines, to find out more about what the research groups might offer, and how you can join in. Support was on hand for those wanting to develop jointly organised events (the conversations at last year’s event resulted in PGs organising a large international conference, an edited collection, and a journal special issue, all supported by the FRGs).

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Ethnography on Foot II

Thursday 1st June 2017

We were delighted to welcome the following:

Panel One – Creativity on FootRob and Harriet Fraser – ‘Walking with shepherds and through a constellation of trees : walking and creativity as tools for enquiring into a cultural landscape’Jake Campbell (School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics) – ‘Marradharma: Paths That Lead to the Kingdom’

Migration Showcase

Friday 19th May 2017

To mark the end of 2016/17 migration meetings – and to encourage further work – the Cultural Significance of Place (CSoP) research group held a Migration Showcase.

Featuring over 20 ‘lightning’ presentations from members of staff, students and our colleagues in the field as well as opening remarks from Professor Mark Shucksmith (Director, Newcastle University Institute for Social Renewal) and closing remarks from Sarah Smart (convenor of Newcastle City of Sanctuary)and Abraham Eiluorior, the showcase was an opportunity to demonstrate the range and urgency of migration research at Newcastle, as well as a variety of projects, teaching initiatives and creative responses.

Place, Class and Youth: New Thinking from the UK and Australia

24th March 2017

We were delighted to welcome the following speakers for this event:

Professor Tracy Shildrick (Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds) – ‘Class and place and the new politics of poverty’Alexandra Coleman (Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University) – ‘On the Accumulation of Homeliness: the ‘Social Mobility Project’ in Western Sydney’Melinda Herron (The School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of Melbourne) – ‘Between a rock and a hard place: navigating the stigmas of class and race in a working-class, culturally diverse Australian school’Professor Roger Burrows (School of Architecture, Planning & Landscape, Newcastle University) – ‘Who do they think you are? The Geodemographic Envisioning of Youth, Place and Class in Britain 1981-2014’

New Approaches to Masculinities

24th February 2017

Featuring new work from researchers in a variety of disciplines, this session explored the tradition and workings of masculinities and gender – and suggested some new approaches for the future. We were delighted to welcome:

East European Memory Space

28th June 2016

This event featured a keynote talk from Dr Małgorzata Pakier, of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Titled “East European Memory Space: How Unique?” Dr Pakier’s talk focused on the emerging international field of East European Memory Studies, and the way that Warsaw’s city space commemorates the Jewish past, in order to propose an alternative view on East European memories that includes broader, European and global references. Dr Pakier was joined by:

Dr Ian Biddle (International Centre for Music Studies, Newcastle University) – ‘Singing the Holocaust: the Yiddish song corpus, media archeology and the limits of testimony’

Migration, asylum and participatory research

Associate Professor Sara Kindon (Victoria University of Wellington) – ‘Making Urban Lives: Refugee-Background Youth and Resettlement in Aotearoa New Zealand’Dr. Katherine Lloyd (Heriot-Watt University) – ‘Who Do We Think We Are? Exploring place, identity and belonging in the North East’Jenny Smith (Newcastle University) – ‘Betwixt and Between: Refused asylum seekers living in Newcastle upon Tyne’Sarah Smart (Newcastle: City of Sanctuary) -‘Newcastle, A City of Sanctuary? The continuing importance of welcome in everyday interactions’
Chair: Prof. Peter Hopkins

Our keynote speaker for this event, Sara Kindon, is Associate Professor in Human Geography and Development Studies in the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand and Visiting Fellow at the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University.

Sara’s paper, ‘Making Urban Lives: Refugee-Background Youth and Resettlement in Aotearoa New Zealand’ distills key insights about how young former refugees make ‘new’ lives in urban Wellington, New Zealand during resettlement. Drawing on qualitative data from participatory research projects with diverse refugee-background youth since 2005, Sara describes the ways in which young people mindfully negotiate their identities, build a sense of belonging and negotiate discrimination within various neighbourhoods and institutions in the city. Within the context of broader research on resettlement and youth development, she considers the importance of gender, youth connectedness, and resilience for their resettlement outcomes. The findings have implications for current representations of refugee-background young people and how policy and practice may better support their effective resettlement.

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Emplaced Bodies / Embodied Places

Friday 15th April 2016

In this session, the group considered how we understand place through the body, and the body in, through and between place(s). We were delighted to welcome:

Multiculturalism, Education and Place

20th January 2016

What is ‘multiculturalism education’? Who does it, or should it, involve? How might a reassessment of multiculturalism education contribute to debates concerning social justice, spatial politics and migration – and to practice and experience in the classroom? Drawing together researchers and practitioners from varying subject areas, this CSoP event explored the impact of cultural diversity on education. We were delighted to welcome:

Ethnography on Foot: Place, Practice and Documentation

16th December 2015

Exploring varying practices that take place ‘on foot’, this event brought together ethnographers, artists and literary critics to discuss moving and movement as a form of knowledge, the politics and territories of landscape, the agency of non-human actors, bodily experience and the challenges posed by documentation. We were delighted to welcome:

Dr. Jo Vergunst (School of Social Science, University of Aberdeen) – ‘Ethnography on foot, and the mobility of trees’Dr Clifton Evers (Media, Culture, Heritage) – ‘Wet ethnography: Attempts at working with a GoPro™ camera to document the churning together of place, masculinity, and affective life in the sea’Dr Anthony Schrag (Fine Art / Artist) – ‘A Path Drawn by my Feet From Scotland to Venice: What does 2500 km mean?’Dr. Abbie Garrington (Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature, Durham University) – ‘The Mallory/Holmes Correspondence: Travelling, Letters, and Travelling Letters’
Chair: Alexia Mellor

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Responding to the Places and Spaces of Contemporary Art

13th November 2015

From installation art and wall painting, to cultural production, to the ‘placing’ of museums throughout the UK and art as a ‘grounded, practiced, connectedness’ – this first event of the 2015/16 academic year explored the varying ways contemporary art and artists are ‘placed’, and how our characterizations of place, space, landscape and location affect the way we approach and understand art. We were delighted to welcome the following:

The North and Northness: Ideas of Place, Locatedness and Regions

29th May 2015

This final CSoP event in the academic year explored varying constructions and understandings of ‘the North’ – as a physical territory, shared idea, political arena, recognised landscape and body of work – and the role of ‘Northness’ in the evolution of British ideas of place, locatedness and regions. We were delighted to welcome the following:

Professor Penny Fielding (English Literature, University of Edinburgh): ‘Curating the North’Dr Simon McKerrell (ICMuS, Newcastle University): ‘Musical Metaphors of the North’Derek Janes (Institute of Maritime Historical Studies, University of Exeter): ‘Can the Concept of ‘Northness’ be applied to Tea Smuggling in the Eighteenth Century?’Dr Michael Pearce (Department of Culture, University of Sunderland): ‘Anyone from the Northeast who says ‘Mum’ should be shot’Dr Peter O’Brien (CURDS, Newcastle University): ‘Decentralisation and Devolution in the UK: Where next for the North of England?’
Chair: Prof. Chris Whitehead (International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies, Newcastle University).

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Brave New Worlds: The Dystopia in Modern and Contemporary Fiction

29th – 30th April 2015, Newcastle University
Supported by the Cultural Significance of Place Research Group

The Politics of Mobilities Design: A Research Workshop

The Global Urban Research Unit at Newcastle University, with support from the Cultural Significance of Place Research Group, organised an afternoon workshop with Professor Ole Jensen (Aalborg University) and Dr Eric Laurier (Edinburgh University and Pentti Haddington University of Oulu).

The Politics of Mobilities Design brought together recent research on mobilities technologies affording vertical mobilities (e.g. lifts/elevators, escalators, drones). The workshop explored the interconnectedness of specific design solutions and decisions with the underpinning rationalities of movement and identified mundane mobilities technologies as expressions of a ‘politics of design’. For more information please see the event flyer: The Politics of Mobilities Design Flyer

The Need to Belong: Identity, Solidarity and Resistance in Everyday Life

13th March 2015

This interdisciplinary half-day event explored understandings and theories of belonging, solidarity and exclusion as applied to research concerning historical acts of resistance, contemporary place attachment, the stewardship of place and the struggle to belong and be identified. We were delighted to welcome:

This afternoon event focused on the Irish communities in Tyneside and Irish migration more broadly, with updates from those involved in recent and ongoing projects in the region (Co-Curate North East, Múin Béarla do na Leanbháin), new directions for research and engagement, and a community showcase of heritage resources available to researchers, professionals and other interested parties. We were delighted to welcome:

Dr Jennifer Thorburn and Dr Adam Mearns (School of English Literature, Language & Linguistics): ‘Home away from home: Expressions of identity and belonging’Dr Michael Richardson (Human Geography): ‘Irish masculinities and intergenerational relations: reflections and new directions’Dr Katherine Lloyd (International Centre for Culture and Heritage Studies): ‘Co-curating place: community-led research into historical migration and contemporary identity in the North East of England’

This interdisciplinary half-day event explored a number of theories and constructions of ‘non-place’, ranging from the abandoned and the lost, to the temporal and digitally mediated, to the nonexistent and the re-imagined. We were delighted to welcome:

Campaigning for Change: Sexual Orientations and Gender Identities

This event asked how, why, and with what impact, sexual orientations and gender identities might be claimed in certain places and spaces, and not others. We were delighted to welcome the following:

Dr Matthew Waites: The New Transnational Politics of LGBT Human Rights: Critical South/North Reorientations
(The University of Glasgow)Emily Waller and Emily Parkin: The ‘Man Up’ Campaign: Challenging Definitions of Masculinity on Campus
(Newcastle University)James Cummings: The Intersections of Sexual Identity Politics and Internal Colonialism in Hainan, China
(Newcastle University)Sarah Smart and Janet Owen: People Who Seek Sanctuary Here
(City of Sanctuary and Rainbow Home)Anita Madan: A comparative examination of the socio-legal landscape of the rights of the LGBT community in Britain (England and Wales) and Pakistan
(Newcastle University)Ian McDonald: Partisan sociology & film practice: combating homophobia in sport
(Newcastle University)Film Screening: ‘Justin’
Chair: Michael Richardson

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Future Cities

6th June 2014

The first ever off-site CSoP event opened with a short talk from Prof. Steven Graham, Vertical dreams: “the ‘layer-cake’ city”, who then led the group on a walking tour of the city. We next went ‘behind the scenes’ at the exhibition and events series, Newcastle City Futures: People, Place Change with exhibition director, Prof Mark Tewdwr-Jones, and heard from Prof. John Gold (Oxford Brookes University), who gave a keynote presentation titled: Nineteen Eighty-Four and all that: imagining future cities 30 years on.

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Maps and Mapping

Friday 25th April

This half-day event asked: how do we understand and use maps, and to what ends? Do we need to critically re-think existing mapping practices? Are new ways of representing space and place possible? What have contemporary map-making approaches gained by working across disciplinary boundaries, and what has been lost? The event featured:

Interpreting The Past In The Present: Place, Monuments and Boundaries

28th March 2014

This half-day event considered how monuments and boundaries constructed in the ancient to recent past continue to be used, negotiated and re-framed in the present, and featured:

Prof. Peter Stone: ‘Ask not what UNESCO can do for you but what you can do for UNESCO. The responsibilities of World Heritage sites in the 21st Century’
(School of Arts and Cultures)Nick Bridgland: ‘Impartial Persuasiveness – Judging the special interest of Preston Bus Station in the national context’
(Designation Team Leader, English Heritage)Dr. Susannah Eckersley: ‘Displaced pasts and common ground: Silesian heritage in Germany and Poland’
(International Centre for Culture and Heritage Studies)Dr. Paul Wright: ‘Architectural longevity and the benevolent act of receiving’
(School of Geography, Politics and Sociology)Niki Black: ‘Festivals, heritage, boundaries? A consideration of how differing interpretations of heritage impact on cultural festivals’
(International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies)
Chair: Dr. Chris Fowler

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Rapid Networking event: Place and Social Renewal

17th January 2014

Featuring a keynote talk from Prof. Keith Shaw (Northumbria University) and chaired by Professor Mark Tewdwr-Jones (Newcastle University) this event drew together our interdisciplinary membership, and, crucially, provided a space for discussion, paving the way for new actions, understandings and connections.

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Place and Practice

28th June 2013

Bringing together researchers from diverse subject areas this event considered the use of practice-based research methods, both as a basis for ‘knowing’ or ‘querying’ various places and spaces, and as a form of research ‘output’. It featured:

Dr Harriet Hawkins: ‘“Nuggets”, “Packets”, “Textures” and “Assemblages”: Exploring Creative-Practice-Based Methods for Researching Place’
(Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London)Annie O’Donnell: ‘Teesside Rococo: Sculpting the Hyperlocal’
(School of Fine Art)Michael Richardson: ‘To Name or Not to Name: A Performative Response to Caitriona Ni Laoire’
(School of Geography, Politics and Sociology)Dr. Julie Crawshaw: ‘The Way Art Works: Descriptions of Practice’
(School of Arts and Cultures)Ruth Barker: ‘Notes on A Love Song’
(School of Fine Art)Dr. Bennett Hogg: ‘Testing the Water: Improvising with the Physical Affordances of Place
(The International Centre for Music Studies)
Chair: Dr Martyn Husdon

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Difference, Culture, Conflict and Place

26th April 2013

Exploring how we see, claim, embody, inhabit or think about ‘difference’ in varying spaces and places, and questioning both why it is we persist in the endeavour to articulate ‘difference’ and how we choose to represent and work with those perceived as dissimilar to ourselves, this event featured:

Identity, Belonging, Power and Place

15th March 2013

Bringing together researchers from diverse subject areas, this event investigated notions of ‘place’ in relation to identity construction and expression, narratives of belonging and exclusion, ideas of ‘the local’ and distributions of power and space. The event featured:

Prof. Floya Anthias: ‘Hierarchies of social location and belonging: a translocational framing’
(Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Social Justice, Roehampton University, Visiting Professor, City University)Sophie Yarker: ‘Being ‘comfortable’ in place: Narratives of local belonging’
(Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies)Kat Lloyd: ‘Young people’s narratives of belonging and exclusion in Scotland: place and the shifting boundaries of national identity’
(International Centre of Culture and Heritage Studies)Dr. Ian Biddle: ‘Between goles and zakhor: music, nationalism and Jewish historiography in Eastern Europe before the Shoah’
(International Centre for Music Studies)Dr. Stephanie Lawler: ‘Fixed in space and time: representations of the English white working class’
(School of Geography, Politics and Sociology)
Chair: Professor Peter Hopkins